Family

My best friend Sophie and I went into labor the very same night. I watched her switch out the two infants with my own eyes, but I did not tell a single soul. For the next decade, I fed, clothed, and raised a daughter that was not mine. On the day the two girls turned eighteen, they received their college offer letters at the same time. One got into an ivy league school, and the other, a community college whose name I had not even heard of. I had never seen Sophie so happy in my entire life. Grinning from ear to ear, she whipped out the DNA report she had been saving for this very moment. "Thank you for raising my daughter to be the valedictorian that she is today. It's time she returns to her mama. As for this good-for-nothing scum… You can take her back!" I sneered. "Very well then." She had no idea what was coming.

I decided to die on my 28th birthday. It was not suicide but homicide... by my dear sister, Susan Bruno. I had always known that she would kill me. I told my older brother, Barry Bruno, and he said, "Charlotte, don't always think so badly of Susan." I told my fiancé, Calvin Simmon, and he said, "You're making up a story to draw attention again." Hence, I decided to give them the evidence they wanted most—a corpse. I installed seven cameras, set up an automatic sending program, and wrote a farewell letter. I left clues for the killer, bait for Susan, and a time bomb for my family. Today, Susan texted: [Charlotte, Dad has something for you at the safe house.] I replied: [Coming.] Before leaving, I checked my to-do list one last time. Everything was checked off, except for one thing: death. I would die. They would never know that the moment my heart stopped beating... the countdown to revenge had only just begun.

I was getting married—but I didn't tell my parents. It was my fifth wedding. The last four? Total disasters, thanks to them. Every time, they claimed something was "wrong" with the wedding car and somehow scared the guy off. First was my college boyfriend. We were solid—four years strong. My parents pushed for marriage... then ditched the idea on the big day because his car wasn't "fancy" enough. Second groom? My boss. He pulled up in a shiny new car they actually approved—until they didn't. Yanked me right out. Third time, they set me up with someone themselves. The guy brought ten cars to play it safe. Didn't matter. They shut it down before I even stepped outside. Fourth time? Same story. I kept wondering—what was so cursed about these cars? Why push me to get married, only to destroy it every single time? This year, I was trying again. Wedding number five. This time, I was pregnant—with the son of the country's richest man. I didn't tell my parents. Thought I'd finally outsmarted them. But just as I was about to get in the car... I saw them sprinting toward me.

My bride went missing on the night of our big day but woke up in my brother's room the next day. My parents persuaded me to ignore it for the sake of fame but scolded my wife as an easy girl. Angrily, I moved out of the villa with my wife. Soon after, my wife had a miscarriage and suffered from depression due to gossip. She jumped off from the top floor in front of me. Desperately, I followed her. Opening my eyes again, I found myself back to the time when the wedding ended.

I gave birth to five children for Chris, but four of them died young. At first, I thought they were just tragic accidents. Then one day, I brought Chris lunch and overheard him talking to his assistant by chance. “Finally, this baby’s bone marrow is a match for Lily’s. If it wasn’t, I’d have to kill him too!" That was when everything became clear to me. I didn’t cry or make a scene. I stayed calm, acting like everything was normal. But on the day his company went public, I exposed him in front of everyone, revealing that he had killed our four children. That day, the once-proud CEO, Chris Quinn, dropped to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably and apologizing to me.

After I studied and lived in Descensio for five years, I finally graduated and was ready to return to my home country to take over my dad's company. When I arrived at the Sullivan Group building, I took a picture and posted it on my Instagram story with the caption. 'Since you're the man I love most, I'm here to see you immediately after graduation.' Yet, a woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped me as soon as I arrived at the company's lobby. "It's her! She's the hussy! She had seduced my husband back in high school. Now that my husband has become the director, she shamelessly showed up here to flirt with him. So, I want you girls to beat her up. I'll take the blame if anything happens." While the woman was cooking up a story about me seducing Marcus Lane, a director of Sullivan Group, others around simply looked on coldly and judged me. She slashed my limited-edition bag to pieces and smashed the expensive seal I wanted to give my dad. "You're just a gold digger wearing and buying fake luxury goods. It's just a few hundred dollars. I can still afford to pay you." However, little did she know that everything I had was real. Even if she and her director husband worked for the rest of their lives, they would never be able to afford to pay for the damages.

When my mind-link request had been ignored by my parents for the twentieth time, I went to the Werewolf Council, clutching the report on silver dust corrosion in my hand. “Hello. I’d like to renounce my pack identity—effective immediately.” Ten minutes later, my parents burst in, dragging my adoptive younger sister, Elsa, with them, panic written all over their faces. The door burst open with a bang, and my Beta father charged in like a storm. His fangs bared, claws twitching. “You’re nothing but a spoiled brat craving attention! Stop this pathetic act. You’re an embarrassment to a Beta’s name!” My mother, a forensic specialist for the pack, immediately snatched the report from my hand. After a brief glance, she let out a cold sneer. “You faked this report just to get our attention? You’ve been a liar since you were a pup.” Elsa clung to both of them, tears in her eyes as she sobbed, “I’m sorry, Jenifer. It’s my fault for holding the shifting ritual. But please... don’t lie to our parents just to make them feel guilty!” Blood was still pouring from my nose, but I wiped it away calmly and stood tall before the werewolf councilors once more. “I haven’t had a real family for a long time. Please—remove all my personal records from the pack. I just don’t want my funeral—scheduled for three days from now—to be delayed.”

When my body was being dismembered, my fiance was helping my cousin choose her wedding dress. When he received my distress call, he said with disgust, "I hope you never come back! You can die with the bastard in your womb! Don't ever call me again. The mentioning of your name makes me sick!" After that, he found a body part of me in a water tank on the rooftop of a hotel. He thought it was a prank, so he actually ordered white lilies and candles to be delivered to my doorstep. Only when he found my head buried in the grass under his feet on the day of our wedding did he realize that it wasn't a prank.

My husband spiked our child's formula with sleeping pills to sneak away for a Christmas date with his assistant. As I frantically rushed my feverish child to the hospital, I unexpectedly spotted my husband carrying his assistant upstairs. "Peyton twisted her ankle, so I'm here to help her get it checked!" Even though our child was in the operating room fighting for her life, he did not so much as glance in her direction. I tightened my grip on the ten-million-dollar winning lottery ticket in my pocket. It was time to end this seven-year marriage.

After failing the mission, the System gave me one final chance, and to succeed, I had to give birth to a child. The System promised that if the baby were born safely, it would reveal the truth to my target and give me one last glimmer of hope. However, six months into my pregnancy, just when things seemed stable, I was dragged onto an operating table in the middle of the night by my husband and family. My husband stopped the anesthesiologist from giving me any pain relief. “Let her feel the pain,” he said coldly. “We need to keep the kidneys as fresh as possible.” My parents instructed the doctor to draw my blood. “She’s the same blood type as our precious girl. Let’s take some for backup.” Even my childhood friend, the boy who had always been by my side, was the one to slice open my abdomen.  They wanted my kidneys to save my sister, who was dying from kidney failure. No one believed I was pregnant. No matter how much I begged, they went ahead with the operation, tearing me open. The baby couldn’t survive, and I died on that operating table. However, as my soul began to fade away, something strange happened. Those who had murdered me—my husband, my parents, my so-called friend—they all lost their minds.